Technology
Why Scott Painter Is Selling His Beach House to Start a New Vehicle Software Company
Serial entrepreneur Scott Painter’s plan to construct an all-electric subscription automotive company called Autonomy has backfired, so he’s back on what he calls the “hardest build” of his profession.
While Autonomy will proceed to operate the small fleet of 1,000 cars it has amassed over the past few years (a far cry from its stated goal of 23,000), Painter is starting a recent company called Autonomy Data Services, or ADS for brief, he told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview.
The recent company will provide a software platform and data to automakers looking to run their very own subscription services for electric, gas, recent and even used cars. Painter says he’s also in talks with automotive dealers, fleet operators and even firms that sell construction and agricultural equipment but might want to offer subscriptions. He says an early version of the service is already generating revenue.
Painter says ADS is in negotiations with multiple automakers, including three which have previously operated their very own subscription service. The company is partnering with Deloitte to run the service; ADS will get a share of the revenue as a software-as-a-service provider, while Deloitte will charge automakers (or other customers) for customizing the platform.
It’s one other twist for Painter, who has had a difficult few years. After stepping down as CEO of automotive retailer TrueCar in 2015 (a company he founded in 2005), he launched automotive leasing startup Fair, which has received greater than $300 million in funding from SoftBank. That’s over poorlyEarly investors accused SoftBank of leading the corporate into failure, and Painter ultimately resigned as CEO in 2021.
His last shift wasn’t easy either.
To make all of it occur, Painter had to persuade Autonomy’s investors, a few of whom were underwater when the subscription service never took off as promised.
“Our lenders had something called senior secured status; they could kill the company and try to liquidate the fleet” to get a few of their a refund, he says. But he worked with them to convert $32 million of debt in Autonomy into equity in ADS.
He also says he had to “do some personal digging,” including selling his $6 million beach house on Pacific Coast Highway, mortgage one other property and “sell a lot of assets I didn’t want to sell.”
“It was the hardest job I’ve ever done as an entrepreneur,” he says, describing the method as “hugging a cactus.”
Data takeover for a six-figure sum
Autonomy was already struggling last yr when Elon Musk’s aggressive price cutting destroyed it the worth of a small fleetmost of them were Teslas. (Painter, who knows Musk personally, says he tried to “instill in Elon the importance of being more predictable with discounts,” but to no avail.)
The problem this time is that the majority major automakers have already tried subscription services. And just about all of them have abandoned the concept.
Painter says that happened because automakers “didn’t yet have the fidelity or understanding of how subscriptions would work.” Because all of those subscription services from automakers were brand recent, he says, they didn’t understand how customers would behave. Would they subscribe for just a few months? Or a few years?
Without that information, it’s really hard to set prices, Painter says, which is why automakers have charged high prices for his or her subscription services, scaring customers away.
That kind of knowledge is one in every of the things it plans to offer through ADS. And it’s not only coming from Autonomy customers. Painter quietly bought the assets of bankrupt used-car marketplace Shift Technologies earlier this yr for lower than $1 million. In the years leading up to its demise, Shift bought Painter’s former car-leasing startup Fair, which had previously acquired Ford’s subscription service Canvas—returning the remnants of its former business to its own ownership—and Uber’s leasing service Xchange.
Data from all of those firms may be used to predict “how long people stay in their cars based on their customer cohort, what their FICO score is, how much income they have, and so on and so forth,” Painter says. That’s essential not only since it provides certainty, but additionally because the flexibleness of subscription services is attractive to customers with lower credit scores.
Painter says that as well as to customer data, he obtained all source code, patents, trademarks, and compliance and legal “work product” from these bankrupt firms, which he says should make it much easier for ADS to relaunch its business for patrons in recent markets.
In total, he says he received greater than a terabyte, jokingly calling it “an astonishing avalanche of sh—.”
“My IT people were just saying, ‘What are you going to do with all this?’ It just kept coming,” he says. But, he notes, the businesses that generated all that data “spent a combined $1 billion developing the software” he now owns and uses at ADS.
“I mean, when (SoftBank CEO) Masayoshi Son finds out that I managed to buy all of Fair’s assets and intellectual property for less than a million dollars, I mean, it’s just going to kill him,” he jokes.
And while he has raised $2.5 million in enterprise funding, the work isn’t done. “We’ve done everything we need to do to make (ADS) an investable business. Now we’re just looking for an equity partner who’s willing to put in $5 million to $8 million,” he says. “That gives the company two years to get up and running so it can continue to grow with Deloitte.”
The use of 3D printing has been praised as an alternative choice to traditional construction, promising faster construction times, creative design and fewer construction errors, all while reducing the carbon footprint. New research from MIT points to an interesting latest approach to the concept, involving the usage of 3D-printed glass blocks in the form of a figure eight, which may be connected together like Lego bricks.
The team points to glass’s optical properties and “infinite recyclability” as reasons to pursue the fabric. “As long as it’s not contaminated, you can recycle glass almost infinitely,” says assistant professor of mechanical engineering Kaitlyn Becker.
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We’re excited to introduce our next group of investors who will evaluate startups and dive into each pitch in an in-depth and insightful Q&A session. Stay tuned for more big names coming soon!
Alice Brooks, Partner, Khosla Ventures
Alicja is a partner in Khosla’s ventures interests in sustainability, food, agriculture, and manufacturing/supply chain. She has worked with multiple startups in robotics, IoT, retail, consumer goods, and STEM education, and led mechanical, electrical, and application development teams in the US and Asia. She also founded and managed manufacturing operations in factories in China and Taiwan. Prior to KV, Alice was the founder and CEO of Roominate, a STEM education company that helps girls learn engineering concepts through play.
Mark Crane, Partner, General Catalyst
Mark Crane is a partner at General Catalysta enterprise capital firm that works with founders from seed to endurance to assist them construct corporations that may stand the test of time. Focused on acquiring and investing in later-stage investment opportunities equivalent to AuthZed, Bugcrowd, Resilience, and TravelPerk. Prior to joining General Catalyst, Mark was a vice chairman at Cove Hill Partners in Massachusetts. Prior to that, he was a senior associate at JMI Equity and an associate at North Bridge Growth Equity.
Sofia Dolfe, Partner, Index Ventures
Sofia partners with founders who use their unique perspective and private understanding of the problem to construct corporations that drive behavioral change, powerful network effects, and transform entire industries, from grocery and e-commerce to financial services and healthcare. Sofia can also be one of Index projects‘ gaming leads, working with some of the best gaming corporations in Europe, making a recent generation of iconic gaming titles. He spends most of his time in the Nordics, but works with entrepreneurs across the continent.
Christine Esserman, Partner, Accel
Christine Esserman joined Acceleration in 2017 and focuses on software, web, and mobile technology corporations. Since joining Accel, Christine has helped lead Accel’s investments in Blackpoint Cyber, Linear, Merge, ThreeFlow, Bumble, Remote, Dovetail, Ethos, Guru, and Headway. Prior to joining Accel, Christine worked in product and operations roles at multiple startups. A native of the Bay Area, Christine graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a level in Finance and Operations.
Haomiao Huang, Founding Partner, Matter Venture Partners
Haomiao from Venture Matter Partners is a robotics researcher turned founder turned investor. He is especially obsessed with corporations that bring digital innovation to physical economy enterprises, with a give attention to sectors equivalent to logistics, manufacturing and transportation, and advanced technologies equivalent to robotics and AI. Haomiao spent 4 years investing in hard tech with Wen Hsieh at Kleiner Perkins. He previously founded smart home security startup Kuna, built autonomous cars at Caltech and, as part of his PhD research at Stanford, pioneered the aerodynamics and control of multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles. Kuna was part of the Y Combinator Winter 14 cohort.
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The regulator that oversees India’s popular UPI rail payments is considering relaxing a proposed market share cap for operators like Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm because it grapples with enforcing the restrictions, two people accustomed to the matter told TechCrunch.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which is regulated by the Indian central bank, is considering increasing the market share that UPI operators can hold to greater than 40%, said two of the people, requesting anonymity because the knowledge is confidential. The regulator had earlier proposed a 30% market share limit to encourage competition within the space.
UPI has change into the most well-liked option to send and receive money in India, with the mechanism processing over 12 billion transactions monthly. Walmart-backed PhonePe has about 48% market share by volume and 50% by value, while Google Pay has 37.3% share by volume.
Once an industry heavyweight, Paytm’s market share has fallen to 7.2% from 11% late last yr amid regulatory challenges.
According to several industry executives, the NPCI’s increase in market share limits is more likely to be a controversial move as many UPI providers were counting on regulatory motion to curb the dominance of PhonePe and Google Pay.
NPCI, which has previously declined to comment on market share, didn’t reply to a request for comment on Thursday.
The regulator originally planned to implement the market share caps in January 2021 but prolonged the deadline to January 1, 2025. The regulator has struggled to seek out a workable option to implement its proposed market share caps.
The stakes are high, especially for PhonePe, India’s Most worthy fintech startup, valued at $12 billion.
Sameer Nigam, co-founder and CEO of PhonePe, said last month that the startup cannot go public “if there is uncertainty on regulatory issues.”
“If you buy a share at Rs 100 and value it assuming we have 48-49% market share, there is uncertainty whether it will come down to 30% and when,” Nigam told a fintech conference last month. “We are reaching out to them (the regulator) whether they can find another way to at least address any concerns they have or tell us what the list of concerns is,” he added.
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